Three distinct chakra signatures flared in the distance. By the ninja world's standards, all three belonged to absolute powerhouses.
The signatures themselves were completely foreign to Menma; he hadn't encountered any of them in this life. His initial instinct was to simply detour around the battlefield and head straight back to the Hidden Waterfall. But considering the geopolitical implications—they were currently in the Land of Rivers, uncomfortably close to the Land of Grass—he changed his mind.
He needed to see exactly who was throwing down in his backyard.
As he silently closed the distance, the unfamiliar chakra signatures attached themselves to highly familiar faces. Even if this was his first time seeing them in this timeline, he knew exactly who they were from his past life.
Two of them wore the iconic black cloaks adorned with red clouds. One was actively fighting, his shark-like features unmistakable. The other stood at the edge of the battlefield, casually observing with the legendary red glow of the Sharingan spinning in his eyes.
They were the Akatsuki's elite duo: Kisame Hoshigaki and Itachi Uchiha.
As for the third man? His screen time in the original story hadn't been massive, but he was still a formidable mid-stage boss. It was Shinno—the leader of the remnants of the Land of Sky, and the madman who had artificially engineered the 'Zero-Tails.'
It's actually these three? Well, this is a rare lineup... Menma mused to himself, watching the brutal clash intensify.
This encounter had never happened in the original story. It was either a ripple effect of Menma altering the timeline, or an off-screen event finally coming to light. Regardless, the moment Menma laid eyes on the Land of Sky remnant, a burning ambition ignited in his chest.
He was going to take Shinno for himself.
The man was a walking goldmine. If you wanted to elevate a ninja village's overall military might, there were countless avenues to take. But the fastest, most violently effective method was technological superiority.
Training a shinobi took years. Expanding a military force took decades. Menma simply didn't have that kind of time. He needed brutal, pragmatic shortcuts. The specialized chakra armor from the Land of Snow was one such shortcut. Over the past year, Menma had thrown massive resources into reverse-engineering and improving it. While the astronomical costs prevented mass production, it had allowed him to outfit a terrifyingly lethal elite strike force.
A ninja wearing chakra armor automatically jumped an entire tier in combat effectiveness. That was an indisputable fact.
And now, right in front of him, was a man who possessed the technology to fundamentally revolutionize both the Waterfall and Grass villages.
The Land of Sky's specialized flight gear.
The colossal floating fortress, Ancor Vantian.
Snatching those assets would instantly catapult his faction's military dominance.
It took Menma less than a second to make his decision. He was going to hijack this operation right out from under Itachi and Kisame's noses.
That old man belongs to me! A lethal light flashed in Menma's eyes.
Swoosh.
Lowering his center of gravity, Menma seamlessly blended into the shadows, creeping closer to the epicenter of the brawl. He needed to strike at the absolute perfect moment for a clean, one-hit takedown. As long as he subdued Shinno first, handling the Akatsuki duo would be manageable.
Make no mistake, Itachi and Kisame were monsters. But the current Menma wasn't the least bit afraid of taking them both on in a two-on-one fight.
As Menma silently closed in, he could clearly see that Shinno was completely overwhelmed. Menma's muscles coiled tight, ready to spring. He couldn't let the Akatsuki bag him first; stealing a secured prisoner was much messier than intervening in an active fight.
Kisame and Itachi were top-tier Kage-level combatants. While Kisame's base stats might technically fall slightly below Itachi's, wielding the greatsword Samehada exponentially multiplied his lethality. In the original timeline, Might Guy had to open the Seventh Gate and use the Daytime Tiger just to put Kisame down. That alone was a testament to the shark's terrifying power.
Faced with that kind of overwhelming, heavy-handed suppression, Shinno—who was merely an elite Jonin artificially propped up by physical enhancement jutsu—stood absolutely zero chance. Defeat was only a matter of time.
Menma could see it clearly. And Shinno, currently fighting for his life, felt it even more intensely.
"Bastard!"
The stench of death was suffocating. Shinno was already crumbling under Kisame's relentless assault, and the fact that Itachi was just standing there, watching and waiting, pushed his anxiety to the breaking point.
Bang!
Samehada ruthlessly smashed into him again.
Swoosh!
Shinno was launched backward like a cannonball.
Thud!
He slammed violently into a massive tree trunk. With a sickening crunch, his face paled, and he violently coughed up a thick mouthful of dark blood. His chakra signature instantly plummeted.
"Well? Have you thought it over, Shinno-san?" Itachi finally stepped forward. Looking at the battered, bleeding man struggling to stand, Itachi spoke with a chilling, apathetic calm. "We are here to formally invite you to join the Akatsuki. Join us, and your safety is guaranteed. The organization will fund and support all of your research and ambitions. In exchange, you simply need to lend us your services."
Recruiting Shinno. That was their mission.
It was a direct order from Pain, originally commanded by Obito. The ripple effects of Menma's actions were tearing through the timeline. Knowing what was coming, Obito had realized the absolute necessity of aggressively expanding the Akatsuki's ranks. Hiruko had been their first target, but Menma had slaughtered him before Pain even had the chance to send an envoy.
Shinno was their second attempt. And until this exact moment, it seemed to be going perfectly.
But Menma's silent arrival was about to throw a massive wrench into their plans.
Unaware of the apex predator lurking in the shadows, Shinno glared at the two Akatsuki members. Hearing Itachi's 'invitation' after getting half his ribs shattered by Kisame sent a wave of blinding fury crashing through his mind.
An invitation?! They beat him to a bloody pulp and called it an invitation?! This was blatant extortion!
Shinno's face twisted into a mask of pure, unadulterated rage. He looked at them like they had just told the sickest joke in the world.
"Hmph. Join your organization?! And what if I say no?!" Shinno spat, his voice laced with venomous defiance.
"Say no? Then I suppose we'll just have to leave your corpse right here, Shinno-san," Kisame chuckled darkly, resting Samehada on his shoulder.
His killing intent rolled off him in suffocating waves. He wasn't bluffing. This was the reality of an S-rank missing-nin from the Bloody Mist. Aside from his respect for Itachi, Kisame cared absolutely nothing for human life.
Under that crushing pressure, an ordinary ninja would have frozen in terror. But for Shinno, it only ignited his madness.
"Leave me here? Let's see if you have the power to actually back that up!" Shinno roared at the top of his lungs.
In a flash, he reached into his robes and pulled out a small glass vial. Inside, a dark purple, worm-like organism was writhing ominously.
Without a second of hesitation, Shinno crushed the glass in his palm.
With a flick of his wrist, right before Itachi's slightly narrowed eyes, Shinno shoved the writhing purple parasite into his mouth and swallowed it whole.
"Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
Itachi's reaction was instantaneous. His hands blurred through the seals in less than a second.
Rumble!
A towering inferno erupted from his lungs, rapidly condensing into a massive, blazing sphere of fire that hurtled directly at Shinno's face.
Gulp!
A sickening, wet sound of flesh rapidly expanding echoed out.
"AAARGHHHHH!"
Following an agonizing, guttural scream, Shinno's body began to violently inflate. His robes shredded into confetti as his muscles grotesquely ballooned outward. A sickening, dense purple aura exploded from his pores.
Boom!
The massive fireball slammed directly into him, entirely engulfing his mutated form in a raging inferno. Under normal circumstances, the target would be reduced to ash.
But Itachi's expression shifted. The calm apathy vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp intensity as his Sharingan locked onto the flames.
A second later...
"AHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Maniacal laughter tore through the roaring fire.
Boom!
A violent shockwave erupted from the epicenter, physically blowing the flames apart.
The figure standing in the crater was no longer human. Shinno radiated an aura of absolute, berserk violence. Most horrifying of all, over a dozen slender, purple, tentacle-like appendages had erupted from his face, and thick, abnormal purple fur coated his lower half.
He looked like a literal demon.
More importantly, his chakra signature had astronomically exploded.
Even Kisame raised an eyebrow, genuinely surprised by the grotesque transformation and the sudden spike in power.
Lurking in the shadows, Menma also watched with mild astonishment. He had been a fraction of a second away from intervening, assuming Shinno was about to get executed.
He hadn't expected the old man to have such a massive trump card hidden up his sleeve.
Is that the prototype Zero-Tails?
Recalling the purple parasite, Menma quickly connected the dots. The Zero-Tails was Shinno's ultimate weapon in the original story—a beast he believed possessed potential exceeding even the actual Tailed Beasts.
Clearly, it wasn't fully matured yet. But he could just swallow the embryo and physically merge with it?
Menma frowned slightly, but it made sense in a twisted way. Shinno had engineered the Zero-Tails to mirror the Tailed Beasts. If a shinobi could seal a beast inside themselves to become a Jinchuriki, physically assimilating his own creation wasn't that far of a leap.
It looks like some sort of localized demonic possession. Let's see just how much power he can actually draw from it, Menma murmured to himself, perfectly content to sit back and watch the show.
While Menma enjoyed the spectacle, Kisame and Itachi were suddenly faced with a very real, suffocating pressure. A moment ago, Kisame could have leisurely toyed with the old man. Now, in this berserker state, Shinno actually posed a lethal threat.
One wrong move, and they could die.
"Kisame!"
"Yeah, I know, Itachi-san!"
A single word was all it took. Having operated together for years, their synergy was flawless. Without needing an explanation, Kisame instantly understood the shift in tactics.
As the mutated Shinno violently lunged forward...
The Akatsuki duo instantly scattered.
"Heh!"
A massive, terrifying surge of chakra erupted from Kisame, far denser and more violent than before.
Boom!
Radiating a freezing, bloodthirsty aura, Kisame flashed a savage grin. Swinging the colossal Samehada in a wide, lethal arc, he charged head-on to intercept the rampaging monster.