But in that exact moment.
As Shinno shifted his gaze.
In less than a single second.
"!"
The crimson figure that had just been standing there was completely gone. His chakra signature had vanished without a trace. A look of sheer bewilderment flashed through Shinno's eyes.
A split second earlier.
The exact moment the kunai had been deflected.
"Kisame!" Itachi barked, his sharp instincts clearly detecting the shift.
"On it, Itachi-san!" Kisame understood instantly, violently pivoting his massive frame.
Simultaneously.
Swoosh!
As the crimson blur flickered back into existence...
"What?!"
"Heh. Shinno-san, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to come with me."
The casual words dropped from right beside him.
His chakra signature suddenly reappeared at point-blank range. Shinno's face drained of color. He barely managed to turn his head to see Menma's apathetic expression. Shock paralyzed his mind, leaving him completely unable to react.
Menma lightly tapped Shinno's shoulder with a single hand.
Clank!
Golden chains violently erupted.
They instantly coiled around Shinno, effortlessly subduing him. His chakra flow ground to a suffocating halt.
The next moment.
Menma's eyes shifted into the blood-red, slitted pupils of the fox.
Hum!
A highly specialized wave of chakra pulsed outward. Shinno felt an immediate, overwhelming wave of dizziness. His mind and body instinctively screamed to struggle, but completely cut off from his chakra, resistance was impossible.
The harder he fought, the deeper he sank. To him, it felt like an eternity of agonizing resistance, but in the physical world, it took barely a second for his consciousness to plunge into the abyss.
A perfect one-hit capture. Shinno's life and death were now entirely in Menma's hands.
At that exact moment, Kisame came crashing in.
Menma casually waved his hand.
Clack! Clack!
Clank!
More golden chains rocketed forward.
Even though this was Kisame's first time seeing the jutsu, his instincts screamed danger. His eyes narrowed sharply as he violently swung Samehada.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
After brutally knocking the two chains away, Kisame immediately kicked off the ground, forcefully retreating to create a safe distance.
In the blink of an eye, the entire dynamic of the battlefield had been flipped on its head. The sheer power and precision Menma had just displayed were staggering.
It wasn't just Kisame.
A strange, highly complex look flickered in Itachi's eyes. This wasn't the first time he had seen Menma. Years ago, before his defection, he had seen the boy plenty of times. Even after joining the Akatsuki, his role as a double agent had brought him back to the Hidden Leaf, allowing him to observe Menma from the shadows. Back then, Menma had just seemed like a quiet, unassuming little boy.
But the feeling he gave off now...
It sent a faint, instinctual chill down Itachi's spine.
It wasn't purely because of Menma's raw strength; it was the sheer aura of his existence. To Itachi, it felt less like looking at a human being, and more like staring down an unfathomably terrifying, primordial beast.
The fleeting chill vanished almost as quickly as it appeared, leaving Itachi with a deeply bizarre, unsettling sensation in his chest.
But one thing was absolutely certain: Itachi could not see through Menma at all.
In that brief moment, countless calculations ran through Itachi's mind. The moment their eyes met, Itachi's expression grew visibly colder.
"Menma-kun. Must you insist on making an enemy of us?"
Itachi stepped forward. As the three tomoe of his Sharingan slowly spun, a distinct, oppressive wave of chakra washed over the area.
Beside him, Kisame hoisted Samehada onto his shoulder, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Itachi. He locked his killing intent entirely onto Menma.
After a rapid, wide-range sensory sweep...
And catching a subtle glance from Itachi...
Kisame was one hundred percent certain there were no other enemies lying in ambush. It was just Menma Uzumaki. Naturally, Kisame dedicated his absolute, undivided attention to the boy.
Capturing Shinno was a direct order from their mysterious leader. Under normal circumstances, retreating without him was unacceptable. However, for Kisame, the leader's orders were secondary; Itachi's will always came first.
If Itachi said they were fighting, Kisame would attack without a second thought. And vice versa.
"Make an enemy of you? No, no, no. I'd simply say our objectives happen to align. It just comes down to who gets their hands on the prize first, doesn't it? As for whether we become enemies... shouldn't that be up to you, Itachi-san?"
Menma offered a light, unbothered smile.
Putting aside the fact that Menma knew exactly what the Akatsuki truly was and what they were planning—even if he didn't, why would he ever hand over a massive prize he had already secured?
That would make him the biggest joke in the world. For Menma, the only question was whether he could take something, not whether he should.
The critical technological data locked inside Shinno's brain, and the colossal floating fortress of the Land of Sky—those were assets Menma was absolutely determined to acquire. With them, he was confident he could rapidly elevate his village's military might to the next level.
The three men stared each other down.
A bizarre, suffocating silence settled over the clearing.
For nearly twenty seconds, no one spoke.
Then, finally...
"If that's how it is, then so be it."
Itachi stared deeply at Menma. A faint, razor-sharp glint flashed through his eyes before rapidly fading away.
Swoosh!
He turned on his heel and instantly flickered away, vanishing from the battlefield.
Kisame rested Samehada against his back, letting out a low, unintelligible chuckle before blurring into motion, rapidly following in Itachi's wake.
Watching the Akatsuki duo decisively retreat...
Menma's brow furrowed slightly. A strange, calculating light flickered deep in his eyes before he quickly suppressed it. Hoisting the unconscious Shinno over his shoulder, he flickered away, leisurely heading in a completely different direction.
---
About half an hour later, Menma arrived in a relatively secluded, quiet valley.
Scanning the surroundings, he gave a light nod of approval.
This should do.
With a casual toss, he dumped Shinno onto the ground.
Kneeling down so they were at eye level, Menma formed a single hand seal.
Thump!
Shinno's body jerked violently.
His tightly shut eyes slowly peeled open, but his gaze was completely hollow, devoid of any focus.
Hum!
Menma locked eyes with him, his pupils once again shifting into the crimson slits of the fox. Channeling Kurama's power, Menma effortlessly hacked directly into Shinno's mindscape.
Very few shinobi were capable of placing sealing jutsu on their own brains. For one, it required an astronomical level of expertise. Secondly, the brain was the most fragile organ in the human body; even a master could easily cripple themselves with a single mistake.
Because of this, once a shinobi fell into enemy hands—dead or alive—skilled interrogators could typically extract whatever intelligence they held. Naturally, shinobi capable of such psychic intrusion were rare, but Menma easily bypassed that hurdle with the Nine-Tails' assistance.
He had done it to Hiruko. He was doing it to Shinno now.
It took Menma less than two minutes to completely strip-mine Shinno's brain of every piece of actionable intelligence.
So that's how he artificially engineered the Zero-Tails. The conditions and methodology aren't actually that complex, but the cost in resources is absolutely staggering. And even then, it requires a massive stroke of luck at the end. Could the standards be lowered? Hmm... but if I did that... nah, forget it. This thing isn't practical...
Naturally, the most critical intelligence Menma sought was the Land of Sky's technological blueprints and the exact coordinates of the Ancor Vantian floating fortress. He searched for those first. Afterward, purely out of curiosity, he reviewed the data on the Zero-Tails.
While the artificial beast wasn't a world-ending threat against true powerhouses, if it could be mass-produced, he could build an invincible, immortal army. Menma wouldn't have even minded if the mass-produced versions were a tier weaker than Shinno's prototype.
Unfortunately, it just wasn't feasible.
Even with lowered standards, reverse-engineering a viable mass-production method would be an absolute nightmare.
Menma was highly self-aware. He knew his raw scientific capabilities lagged behind genuine mad scientists like Shinno, Hiruko, and Orochimaru. His previous successful experiments were entirely built on the foundation of Orochimaru's stolen research and his own meta-knowledge of the original timeline.
Starting a brand new, highly complex biological project from scratch without a perfect template—like he had with Hiruko's Chimera Technique—would require an incalculable amount of time and trial-and-error. Menma simply didn't have the luxury of time to waste on it.
If Shinno, the original creator, needed over a decade and a lucky break just to produce a single successful embryo, how could Menma possibly perfectly replicate it—let alone streamline it for mass production—in a short timeframe?
He discarded the idea almost immediately, refocusing his thoughts entirely on the newly acquired Land of Sky technology.
With these blueprints in his hands, Menma was absolutely certain he could propel his village's combat effectiveness to a whole new tier.
In the ninja world, the ability to fly was an absolute, overwhelming advantage. How many shinobi actually possessed anti-air capabilities? Even in Kage-level battles, the principle held true.
Fighters like Rasa, Onoki, Gaara, and Deidara held an innate, massive tactical advantage over grounded opponents of the same tier.
It was an indisputable fact!
I need to set up a dedicated research and manufacturing task force the moment I get back. How many personnel should I reassign initially? Hmm...
Five hundred should be enough for the first phase...
I can have Fugi oversee the logistics and command structure...
And I need to find the time to secure the Ancor Vantian. Luckily, it's parked nearby in the Land of Rivers...
Then there's...
Having secured all the necessary intelligence, Menma casually ended Shinno's life while simultaneously drafting his operational plans in his head.
Keeping the old man alive was too much of a liability; it was better to just wipe him off the board. Menma absolutely refused to play political mind games with these ancient, cunning foxes. That wasn't his strong suit.
Even though Menma had lived two lives and possessed a combined mental age of over thirty, his past life had just been that of an ordinary twenty-something college student. How much real-world, cutthroat experience could he possibly have?
And in this life, he had spent his first twelve years in the Hidden Leaf, forced to constantly play the role of a harmless, naive kid.
Compared to a true, battle-hardened thirty-year-old veteran of the ninja world, Menma's psychological maturity and manipulative prowess still had a massive gap.
Menma was sharply aware of this. He would never arrogantly pit his own weaknesses against his enemies' absolute strengths.
He refused to become the kind of idiot who gets sold out and still happily helps count the money. He relied on cold, rational pragmatism.
Therefore, Hiruko had to die. And so did Shinno.
They couldn't be trusted, they couldn't be reasoned with, and they were far too experienced to keep as prisoners. Slaughtering them and using their corpses as biological research materials was the absolute best outcome.
As the new, hyper-lethal blueprint for his village took shape in his mind, a highly satisfied smile curled Menma's lips.
He truly hadn't expected to stumble across such a massive windfall on this trip.
If everything goes smoothly, I might be able to initiate the final phase of my master plan by next year... Menma thought to himself, a bright, ambitious light flashing in his eyes.
Having organized his thoughts, Menma glanced up at the sky.
The sun was already dipping below the horizon. Another hour or two had passed.
It should be about time, right? Or did I misread the situation? Menma frowned slightly.
Just as the doubt crept into his mind...
Suddenly.
A distinct chakra signature breached the edge of his sensory range, rapidly closing in from the distance.
Looks like he came after all... Menma's brow relaxed.
If he had waited much longer without anyone showing up, he would have assumed he had completely misread the cue and simply left.
But it seemed he hadn't misunderstood the hidden meaning behind that final glance.
Menma turned around, his expression perfectly calm as he watched the approaching figure.
A few moments later...
Swoosh!
A tall, slender figure with an apathetic expression dropped gracefully from the canopy, landing softly in the clearing just a short distance away from Menma.