After going outside and playing with Snow for a while, Menma returned home. The sky was already dim, dusted with the pale blue of evening. With the warmth of the room easing the cold stiffness in his limbs, he cooked a modest dinner and had a quiet meal with his ever-loyal companion curled at his side. The peaceful silence of the room—interrupted only by the soft clinking of utensils and Snow's contented purring—felt like the calm before a coming storm.
After cleaning up the dishes and wiping down the counter, Menma walked over to his desk and sat down. Snow followed gracefully, jumping up onto the table like a queen returning to her throne. She stretched out and began grooming herself with slow, elegant strokes while Menma pulled a piece of paper closer.
He began to write, his brows drawn tightly together, lips pursed. He noted everything he knew about the red energy—its strange origins, how it reacted to his emotions, how it had become part of him so deeply it was indistinguishable from his own chakra. He even considered the surreal dreamlike encounter with the massive fox in the seal—a moment that felt more real than fantasy. He paused, frowning.
Was it really a "he"? Or a "she"? He couldn't tell. Like his sibling, the beast's gender was a mystery. Perhaps that was why the creature was angry—maybe it didn't like being misgendered.
Kurama and Naruto—who were both often mistaken for the wrong gender—"...", somewhere far away, blinked in unison...
Even stranger were the memories that flickered faintly at the edge of his mind. Foggy and warm, centered around his mother—memories from before he was even born. How could he remember that?
(If that fox had been with me even then… it must know me better than anyone.)
His pen moved faster now, tracing ideas with growing certainty.
(My body has completely adapted to that energy. Not only that… I think my cells might be producing it themselves, even in tiny amounts.)
A possibility surfaced. What if that creature wasn't sealed in him as punishment or by chance? What if it was bred into him?
What if… the reason his mother grew weaker during pregnancy was because she was channeling that chakra into him? Maybe even raising him as a vessel. A container. A weapon for the village.
The pieces clicked together too easily, too seamlessly. Too perfectly.
His eyes widened.
(No… it can't be. But—what if I was created to host that thing? What if… my mother died not by chance, but by design?)
And what about his sibling?
An unwanted by-product… disposable.
"Naruto"—the name hit like a whisper in his head—not chosen, just left over…
Menma slowly stood up. A sharp chill passed through him as his brain processed the implications of what he had just thought. His hand trembled slightly. Countless memories and fragments came rushing in, crashing like waves. Every lie. Every silence. Every look of guilt.
"It was all to keep me under control."
His eyes darkened.
From deep within, something ancient stirred.
Suddenly, his chakra surged with unnatural intensity. It wasn't just angry—it was alive, agitated, turbulent, burning with raw, unchecked emotion. His body responded with terrifying efficiency. Every cell activated as if answering a call to war. Blood boiled. Muscles trembled. Energy twisted violently in every vein.
The red chakra spilled out of him like smoke from a fire, pooling on the floor, rising like mist. The temperature in the room spiked. Outside the sealing space, Kurama flinched.
This wasn't normal. Kurama had sensed fear, hate, sorrow… but this? This was the kind of chakra only seen when an Uchiha lost everything and awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Kurama surged to the front of the seal, eyes wide. The chakra around him changed—the seal's lines flared with dangerous new patterns, ones that threatened to shift from containment to execution.
"What… is this boy?"
Outside, the room began to rattle as dark chakra gushed out like blood from a wound. The air became thick, electric, acidic with rage.
One Genbu operative burst through the window after setting a red flare—an emergency signal. He landed hard, immediately assessing the interior.
But what he saw stopped him cold.
Standing in the center of the room was a child. Small, hunched slightly at the shoulders. Surrounded by chakra so heavy, it draped the floor like molten lava. And he was looking right at him—eyes blank, but filled with something ancient and primal.
The Genbu operative froze.
This is no child.
Menma—no, Raymond—was awake.
You may wonder who Raymond is. Well, Raymond wasn't just a doctor in his previous life—he was a surgical prodigy, a man of scalpel-precise logic and icy discipline. His hands had saved countless lives, but they had also become numb to suffering. He viewed the human body as a puzzle to solve, not a soul to mourn. Death did not shake him; it simply confirmed that something had failed. That he had failed.
When Menma was reborn, Raymond was buried deep in the subconscious—sealed behind instinct, trauma, and time. But he was never gone. He watched through Menma's eyes, whispered in moments of fury, and stirred when blood and betrayal triggered old reflexes. He is the part of Menma that knows how to cut without flinching, to strike without mercy.
Now, for the first time, Raymond is waking up.
Raymond, the mind of the man Menma once was. The skilled surgeon. The emotionless killer. The efficient dismantler of human flesh. He stood in that body now, instincts sharp as scalpels. And in front of him, a strange red-skinned creature—a threat, a test subject.
The operative didn't move. He didn't breathe. He couldn't. His prey instincts screamed that death would follow even the flick of a finger.
Raymond tilted his head slightly.
Would you bleed red like the rest of them?
Blood. He loved blood. The heat of it. The weight of it. The way it clung to his hands.
He took a step forward—
"Meow."
The soft, high-pitched call cut through the fog like a knife.
Raymond blinked.
Snow had climbed onto the desk. With gentle confidence, she laid her paw atop his hand. Her innocent, curious gaze pierced through the darkness like moonlight cutting through storm clouds.
Menma came back.
Blinking rapidly, he felt the oppressive pressure vanish. He looked down at Snow and gave a tired, quiet smile.
"...Thank you, Snow."
He gently lifted her into his lap and patted her head, letting her purr ease the last tension in his shoulders. Sitting back down at his desk, he reviewed his notes again with a clearer head, more grounded now—but something within him had changed. Something had been… unlocked.
Unbeknownst to him, the dark chakra had silently retracted, slipping back into his skin through his feet as if called back into hibernation. Outside, the Genbu operative still stood frozen, stunned to silence.
The killing intent was gone. The room was peaceful again.
"Haaaachiii!"
Menma sneezed loudly, the kind of sneeze that reminds you how fragile peace really is.
"Snow? Why is it so cold suddenly? Did the heater break?"
"Meooow!" came the reply, urgent.
"The window? But it's locked—"
He turned. On his bed stood a figure in full gear, shoes on the sheets, framed by shattered glass.
"…?"
CRACK! CRASH!
More masked shinobi poured into the room from the walls, the floor, even the ceiling. Menma's jaw dropped. He could only stare as a storm of operatives filled his home like a nest of ants.
And then… the Third Hokage stepped in, calm as ever.
Snow, unfazed, batted Menma's notebook off the desk with her paw.
"Meow."
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