Buzz—!
Within the laboratory, using that precious sample of Kushina's cell tissue as the origin point, the dark blue seal array suddenly erupted with a blinding radiance!
The light carried a kind of deep-seated, bone-chilling coldness and ill omen.
The air twisted violently, and countless ash-white substances, resembling the ashes of burnt paper, materialized out of thin air!
These substances were madly drawn towards the traitor at the center of the laboratory by an invisible vortex!
"Ugh ah…!!!"
This traitor named Shiso convulsed violently!
His face twisted into an expression of extreme agony and terror!
His throat emitted incoherent, death-throes-like howls of agony as his body began to melt and decompose like a wax statue thrown into strong acid!
Skin, muscle, bone… under the envelopment and erosion of the ash-like substance, they rapidly dissolved like ice and snow under the sun!
The ashes grew thicker and denser, churning like a living thing!
They greedily devoured the remaining human matter, emitting a grating, teeth-gnashing 'crunching' sound.
The dust churned, writhing and shaping itself like a living creature.
Gradually, it outlined long limbs, a full bust, a slender waist.
Finally, a female face gradually became clear amidst the billowing gray-white dust.
Menma's sapphire-blue pupils contracted slightly, his gaze fixed unblinkingly on this forbidden spectacle of reversing life and death and defiling the deceased.
This was the first time he had personally performed the Impure World Reincarnation. The cold, repulsive feeling originating from the soul level caused even him a trace of discomfort.
The light shone on his young face, casting shifting patterns of light and shadow.
The vortex of ashes gradually settled.
The light dimmed.
Inside the laboratory, the traitor named Shiso had vanished without a trace.
In his place stood a figure, silent and still.
Waist-length red hair, burning like flame, remained dazzling even under the cold fluorescent lights.
Her features, bearing a heroic air, were now rendered in a lifeless, grayish tone, like aged pottery.
Most striking were the dense, web-like black cracks covering her face, neck, and exposed arms, like fine porcelain shattered and hastily glued back together.
Her eyes were closed, and she wore a simple green long dress… the attire she wore in life, provided by the Impure World Reincarnation.
Uzumaki Kushina.
She had returned to the world of the living in the body of the deceased.
Menma's heart thumped heavily, uncontrollably, in his chest.
An indescribably complex emotion instantly seized him.
Was it the thrill of a long-awaited reunion?
Guilt for defiling the deceased?
Or was it the unexpected, heart-wrenching pain that surged upon seeing this 'shattered clay doll'?
He subconsciously pressed his lips together. Deep within his sapphire blue eyes, waves of emotion even he found difficult to decipher churned.
Just then, the long eyelashes of the 'clay doll' trembled and slowly opened.
The eerie gray whites of the eyes characteristic of the Impure World Reincarnation, the pupils empty and blank, like dust-covered glass beads.
She turned her neck stiffly, surveying the cold, unfamiliar, technology-filled laboratory, her eyes filled with alienation and detachment from the 'world of the living'.
Until her gaze fell upon the black-haired youth silently watching her before her.
Time seemed to freeze for an instant.
The empty gray eyes of the reincarnated soul, upon clearly seeing the youth's face, rippled violently like still water struck by a stone!
Blankness faded, replaced by disbelief and shock, followed immediately by a pure, blazing joy that erupted like a volcano!
"Men... Menma?!" Kushina's voice was hoarse from just awakening, yet brimming with overwhelming excitement and incredulity.
She even instinctively took a step forward, her grayish face seemingly regaining a faint trace of vitality from this extreme emotion.
"Is it you? Menma?! Heavens, you've... you've grown so big?!"
Her voice echoed through the cold laboratory, carrying an unreal warmth.
Menma jolted!
As if struck by an invisible bolt of lightning!
His sapphire blue pupils instantly contracted, filled with shock greater than that of seeing the Impure World Reincarnation succeed, and a trace of panic!
'Why?!'
'My current appearance was meticulously maintained through a Transformation Technique!'
'It simulated my appearance grown to fifteen years old in that false world of [Limited Tsukuyomi]!'
That world's Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato had long since vanished with the collapse of that world!
The one before him now, summoned through the Impure World Reincarnation, was his true mother from this real world, who had died just after his birth!
'How could she recognize me at a glance?!'
Just as Menma's mind was reeling and his thoughts thrown into chaos, Kushina, brimming with the overwhelming joy of having found something long lost, opened her arms, wanting to embrace this son she hadn't seen for who knew how many years!
Her grayish face even twisted slightly with the force of her excitement, tugging at the black cracks, but the longing was undeniably real.
However, just as she was about to touch Menma-
Menma's body, like a startled cat, jerked violently backward a large step!
Kushina's open arms froze in the cold air.
Her fingertips were less than an inch from Menma's clothes, yet it seemed to span an unbridgeable chasm.
Deathly silence filled the laboratory.
Only the hum of the instruments sounded particularly piercing.
The radiant joy on Kushina's face, like a flame doused with cold water, rapidly dimmed and finally solidified into a profound, bone-deep sense of loss and sorrow.
Those eyes, glowing with the gray hue of the Impure World Reincarnation, looked at Menma with disbelief, swirling with pain and confusion.
Slowly, trembling, she lowered her arms that had frozen mid-air. Her voice was thick with emotion and a wounded tremor: "Menma... do you... do you still hate Mom and Dad? Hate us for not protecting you and Naruto well... Hate us for letting you drift alone outside for so many years..."
These words, like a blunt knife, stabbed viciously into Menma's heart.
He forcibly suppressed the tempest within him, forcing himself to remain calm.
He took a deep breath. The cold air stung his lungs, making his voice sound unusually dry and detached:
"Hate? No."
He paused, his sapphire blue eyes meeting Kushina's pained gaze directly, and threw out the core question that had thrown his mind into disarray: "I just don't understand. Why? Why can you recognize me? My current appearance isn't real."
She tilted her head slightly, her mouth struggling to form a reassuring smile, though it appeared fragile beneath the cracks of the reincarnated flesh.
She looked at Menma's deep sapphire blue eyes, which seemed especially profound under the cold light. The sorrowful expression on her face was replaced by a mother's tenderness and insight.
"Silly child…" Her voice softened, carrying a tone of matter-of-fact certainty, "Because of your eyes."
"Eyes?" Menma's brow furrowed deeply.
Kushina leaned forward slightly, as if wanting to get a closer look, even though Menma still maintained his distance.
"Your eyes are a lot like Naruto's, a beautiful blue, like a clear sky…" Kushina's lips curled into a hint of a nostalgic smile, which then took on a unique sharpness.
"But, Menma, your eyes... are deeper, more... complex. They hold too many things. And..."
Her voice lowered, carrying a trace of imperceptible pride and heartache: "When you were just born, you were different from other children. I've seen other newborns in the Konoha Hospital's maternity ward. They were all crying loudly. Only you, you just opened your eyes so quietly, not crying or making a sound. Your bright pupils just looked quietly at your father and me... Right then, I knew, my Menma was a very, very special child."
"Your eyes... Mom could never forget them."
Boom!
Kushina's words struck Menma's mind like a second thunderbolt!
The detail she described, that unusual 'quietness' and 'gaze' unlike a normal baby, was like a key, instantly unlocking the most secret floodgates of his memory!
Memories from the moment of his birth surged up, countless fragmented images rushing in!
Menma's breathing became somewhat ragged. He subconsciously averted his gaze from Kushina's, as if her eyes carried a scorching heat.
An intense desire to confide, a loneliness and confusion pent up for fifteen plus seven years, churned within him like a flood breaking through a dam!
"I... I wasn't adrift." Menma's voice was so low it was almost a whisper, carrying a weariness that seemed to traverse vast stretches of time. He began to weave a half-true, half-false lie.
"On the day I was born... the mysterious man who attacked Konoha, his Sharingan's Genjutsu-"
He raised his head, looking back at Kushina. Deep within his sapphire blue eyes was a bottomless, dark pool.
"Trapped me in a Genjutsu World called [Limited Tsukuyomi]-"
"For a full fifteen years!"
He began to narrate.
His voice was calm, yet like a cold stream, washing over Kushina's heart as a mother.
He told of that false yet utterly 'real' world: it had Minato, it had Kushina, it had a complete Konoha Village, familiar comrades, and the rules by which the entire world operated.
He was born there, grew up there, possessing what seemed like a complete family and childhood.
His parents' love, his friends' companionship… everything felt so real.
"But! I knew it was fake! All of it was fake!" Menma's tone suddenly turned cold, carrying a sharp, self-mocking edge.
"From the moment I had clear consciousness, I knew. The light and shadows of that world carried an indescribable sense of 'fakeness'."
"I spent fifteen years… a full fifteen years! Searching for a way to leave."
He paused, his voice taking on a hint of a fierceness he himself hadn't noticed: "I captured Jinchuriki from various villages, attacked the Five Great Ninja Villages, sowed discord, spread war and fear! I didn't hesitate to ignite the Fourth Great Ninja War in that world, fighting alone against an allied force of eighty thousand Ninja!"
"Using the most extreme methods to shake the very foundations of that world!"
"Finally... it rejected me, and I was able to leave."
Kushina listened quietly. The gray eyes of her reincarnated body fluctuated violently with Menma's story, filled with an inexpressible sadness.
Menma's madness, his willingness to make enemies of the entire world just to break free from the falsehood!
It shocked Kushina as a mother, pained her heart, and filled her with immense regret over Minato's choice back then.
"That world's... Mom-" Menma's gaze fell on Kushina's grayish face, carrying a trace of dazed comparison: "She... had a personality very much like yours. Optimistic, cheerful, strong-willed. She could be very fierce when angry. Everyone called her [The Red Hot Habanero]."
"Pfft-" Kushina couldn't help but laugh. The smile tugged at the cracks on her face, looking somewhat strange, yet revealing genuine amusement: "That really is exactly like me!"
The laughter was short and dry, laden with thick bitterness.
Menma's eyes grew even deeper. He continued, each word like an ice spike, "But that world's Dad, Namikaze Minato... he didn't become the Fourth Hokage. He chose to be an ordinary Ninja, guarding his family's side. He was just a Jonin with decent strength."
His voice betrayed no emotion, yet it made Kushina's heart sink heavily.
Kushina finally understood.
She understood where her son's lingering alienation and confusion came from.
She understood why he was so silent regarding the role of 'father'.
In that false world, he had a 'complete', 'family-oriented' father.
While in reality, Minato sacrificed himself for the village, for sealing the Nine-Tails, leaving Menma and Naruto in grave danger.
Overwhelming guilt and heartache flooded Kushina like a tidal wave.
She could no longer hold back. Her reanimated body seemed to break free from some invisible restraint.
She took a fierce step forward, and this time, disregarding Menma's potential resistance, she opened her arms and hugged him tightly, forcefully!
The embrace was cold, carrying the scent of dust, not warm in the slightest, yet exceptionally powerful.
"I'm sorry... Menma... I'm so sorry..." Kushina's voice choked up. Tears couldn't flow from her reincarnated body, but the intense sorrow and self-reproach were clearly conveyed.
"It was all Mom and Dad's fault… we failed to protect you and Naruto... let you struggle alone in that terrible place for fifteen years..."
Her arms held him tightly, as if trying to knead fifteen years of debt and longing into this embrace.
This time, Menma's body only stiffened for a moment, but he did not retreat again.
He allowed Kushina to hold him. Her red hair fell, covering his face and his eyes.
His straight back appeared exceptionally lonely under Kushina's embrace.
"I..." Menma's voice came from Kushina's shoulder, muffled, carrying a deep weariness and confusion: "I can't... tell anymore. Can't tell which world is real, which is fake. Can't tell... which 'Uzumaki Kushina' and 'Namikaze Minato' this familial love... truly belongs to."
He spoke as if stating an objective fact, yet it revealed the immense chaos and fragmentation within him.
Fifteen years of 'real' experience in a false world, and the cold, harsh truth of the real world, had torn his emotions and cognition to pieces.
Kushina's arms trembled slightly around her son.
She released the embrace, cupped Menma's face with both hands, forcing him to look directly into her eyes, which, though glowing with the gray hue of reincarnation, were filled with an endless, maternal soft light.
"Menma, you're wrong." Her voice suddenly rose, carrying a power that pierced through the fog: "That world might have been a prison created by the enemy's Genjutsu, it was false! But-"
She spoke word by word, her voice like a heavy hammer striking Menma's soul:
"Mom and Dad's love for you was never false!"
"Not in any world!"
"Genjutsu can create environments, can distort perceptions, but it cannot create a 'real' emotion out of thin air! The love that Kushina and Minato in that world had for you was real! It stemmed from the instinct of 'our' souls! It's the familial bond carved into our very bloodline!"
Boom!!!
This statement, like the third and most violent thunderbolt, viciously shattered the thick ice named 'doubt' and 'fragmentation' in Menma's heart!
His sapphire blue pupils dilated abruptly, filled with an unprecedented, violent tremor!
Kushina's words were like a key, instantly unlocking the most turbulent floodgates deep within his memory!
In the Limited Tsukuyomi World… that Kushina, teaching him the complex Uzumaki Clan's sealing techniques hand-in-hand, from the most basic Chakra Control to the exquisite Adamantine Sealing Chains... She was always boisterous, and a wrong hand seal would earn him a light tap on the head with a rolled-up book, shouting "Menma, you dummy! Like this!", yet her eyes held not a trace of impatience, only full of expectation and encouragement.
He remembered when he first successfully condensed a Chakra Chain, she excitedly picked him up and spun around, her red hair flying, laughter echoing across the entire training ground.
That Minato would squeeze time between busy, ordinary missions to take him to the training grounds outside the village.
He practiced Flying Thunder God Kunai with him, practiced the Rasengan, again and again, tirelessly.
Under the setting sun, his father's blond hair was dyed a warm orange-red, his smile gentle and tolerant: "Don't rush, Menma. Space-Time Ninjutsu requires 'feeling', not brute force. Remember, where the heart goes, the body follows."
Big Sis Hinata, with her hands on her hips, beating up the older kids who bullied him until they were bruised and swollen, then turning to give him a bright, domineering smile: "From now on, your big sister's got your back!"
The dark little Nine-Tails popped out from his scarf, snatched his tri-colored dango, only to be picked up by the scruff of its neck by him. The little fox, pouting angrily, waved its tiny paws in protest: "Menma, you big dummy! This lord fox wants sweets!"
Those vivid, lively scenes, those emotions carrying warmth... Were these all false?
If the love was false, why were the details of the teachings so real?
Why was that look of gratified relief and pride so deeply etched in his memory?
Why were Hinata's affection for him and the little Nine-Tails' dependence so vibrant?
Kushina, watching the violent turmoil in her son's eyes, seemed to understand the storm raging within him.
A gentle, insightful smile appeared on her grayish face, and she continued softly:
"Although Mom doesn't know exactly what that Genjutsu World was like, I think... a Genjutsu so vast, so real, that it could even let you live inside it for a full fifteen years-"
She paused, her gaze profound as she looked at Menma: "Everything it constructed, the 'us' it presented, the emotions it contained... perhaps it was precisely the truest, deepest reflection of your innermost desires and longings."
'The truest, deepest reflection of his innermost desires and longings?!'
Buzz-!
Menma's mind seemed completely detonated by these words!
After a moment of blankness, an unprecedented violent storm erupted!
'Could it be... Could it be that world...'
'Was not entirely controlled by Obito's Sharingan Genjutsu?'
'Could it be...'
'That fifteen-year-long, incredibly 'real' Limited Tsukuyomi… was something I myself, deep in my subconscious, to escape the cruel reality of being reborn into the Naruto World… at the moment he was hit by Obito's Genjutsu, cooperating with the Sharingan's illusionary power… self-hypnotized… self-constructed?!'
'A sanctuary for the heart born from my deepest desires and fears?!'
"Cogito, ergo sum?" Menma unconsciously murmured this ancient philosophical phrase, his voice dry and hoarse, carrying a shudder of world-upending shock. (T/N: It means "I think, therefore I am.")
He remembered the birth of the Black Nine-Tails at the orphanage.
He was only three years old then. He had once thought the little guy appeared after absorbing his Chakra for three years.
Perhaps it also coalesced from his endless negative emotions and loneliness.
He remembered the emergence of Big Sis Hinata's personality, that spicy, straightforward second personality who had an unconcealed fondness for him.
Was that also a subconscious longing for 'pure love', or even his...?
All the clues, at this moment, connected and collided madly!
The few high-intensity emergency lights on the laboratory ceiling, as if unable to withstand the mental impact that surged in an instant and the unconscious violent fluctuations of Chakra, suddenly emitted a sharp 'crackling' sound.
The tubes inside flashed with a blinding red light, followed by several dull 'pop' sounds as they exploded one after another!
Countless tiny glass fragments fell like crimson ice shards!
The entire core laboratory was instantly enveloped in a shattered, glaring blood-red emergency light!
The light madly danced and twisted on Menma's rigid body, on Kushina's cracked, reanimated form, on the cold reflections of the alloy walls!
Menma struggled out of Kushina's embrace, as if all strength had been drained from him. He staggered back a step, his back hitting the cold alloy wall with a heavy thud.
He slowly raised his right hand, trembling, and slowly touched his own right cheek.
That handsome face belonging to the fifteen-year-old Uzumaki Menma.
Only now, this face held none of its usual composure, calm, or confident control. All that remained was the bewilderment and fragility brought by the immense impact.
Those blue eyes, deeper and calmer than Naruto's, now trembled violently. Deep within the pupils, stormy waves churned, reflecting the room full of broken, crimson light.
'So... the so-called [Limited Tsukuyomi World]... was never an illusion created by Obito... It was me, myself-'