"Hahaha! Fake! It's all fake!"
"There's no Uchiha Madara in this world! No Sage of Six Paths! And certainly no Otsutsuki Kaguya!"
Under a blood-red moon, in the heart of the battlefield during the Fourth Great Ninja War, Uzumaki Menma stood atop the Black Nine-Tails, laughing maniacally as he faced the combined forces of 80,000 Ninjas.
The elite Ninjas below wore grim expressions. Over the past two years, they had grown accustomed to this madman who kept ranting about how 'this world is fake'.
After his wild laughter subsided, Menma removed his white three-eyed fox mask, feeling the pulsations of the transplanted Sharingan in his eyes and the growing rejection from the world itself.
Fifteen years had passed since he first crossed into this world.
As a transmigrator, he had initially believed himself to be Uzumaki Naruto. Instead, he was Uzumaki Menma, with both parents, Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, alive and well. This made Menma realize that the world he was in was nothing but a false [Limited Tsukuyomi] illusion.
To find a way out, he spent over a decade growing stronger, collecting various Kekkei Genkai and secret techniques, even transplanting a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan into himself. He tamed the Black Nine-Tails and became a powerhouse surpassing even the Kage-level.
But no matter how hard he looked, he could not find any trace or legend of Uchiha Madara, the Sage of Six Paths, or Otsutsuki Kaguya in this world.
Frustrated, Menma unleashed a [Great Spiralling Ring] on each of the Five Great Ninja Villages, triggering the Fourth Great Ninja War.
As the Five Great Ninja Villages rallied 80,000 Ninjas against him, Menma seized the moment to expose the truth of this fabricated world.
Whether or not the 80,000 Ninjas believed him, the false world had already begun rejecting him.
Feeling the increasing pressure of the Limited Tsukuyomi World's expulsion, Menma watched in delight as a faint white light began enveloping his body.
He was about to leave this world.
The only question was… where would he awaken? Would it be at some point in the real Naruto World, or had he already been trapped at the time when Limited Tsukuyomi was launched?
"A parting gift for this world." A dark purple Chakra ball was condensed in Menma's right hand. The center was a high-density Chakra, and the outside was a circle of Wind Attribute Chakra that formed a star ring surrounding it.
As the Great Spiralling Ring struck the ground, a blinding white light erupted, swallowing half the battlefield and tens of thousands of Ninjas in a cataclysmic explosion!
And with that, Menma vanished into the light.
…
October 10th, Year 51 of the Konoha Calendar.
Deep in the forests outside Konoha, inside a secret delivery room shrouded in barriers, Menma slowly opened his eyes.
"As expected of the Yellow Flash."
"But what will you do now?"
A voice spoke right beside him.
Menma's eyes widened as he saw a man wearing a tiger-striped pattern mask holding him in one arm.
Turning slightly, he spotted Namikaze Minato cradling a blond-haired infant in his arms.
"Minato!" On the bed nearby, Uzumaki Kushina cried out weakly.
'The night of the Nine-Tails Rampage?'
'Wait… If Minato is holding Naruto, then who am I?'
Before he could think further, the masked man detonated the explosive tags he had planted, blasting Minato out of the room.
In the instant of the explosion, Uchiha Obito took Menma and Kushina into the Kamui Dimension.
"Menma!" In the Kamui Dimension, Kushina struggled to get up, but she was too weak from childbirth.
Obito, who is wearing a tiger-patterned mask, flung out two chain-linked kunai, pinning her down.
Then, he glanced at the infant in his hand.
"Not even crying, huh?" For some reason, Obito found killing this baby to be… rather boring.
Obito wants to make his former teacher, Minato, feel the pain of losing a loved one!
'What if I raised this child to become a villain and made him destroy Konoha?'
'Now that would be an interesting game.'
The thought of Minato's two sons killing each other a decade later made the corner of Obito's lips curl up beneath his tiger-striped mask.
'But raising a child myself for over ten years would be too slow.'
Obito had no interest in playing house with a brat.
So, after sparing one last glance at his former teacher's wife, Kushina, Obito's body was swallowed by Kamui.
The next moment, he reappeared at an orphanage on the outskirts of Konoha.
"Menma, huh?" Obito murmured, looking down at the infant gazing up at him with wide, ocean-blue eyes… He remembered the name that Kushina had called out earlier.
After marking Menma with a Kamui coordinate and scribbling his name on a slip of paper, Obito placed the swaddled baby at the orphanage's entrance.
Obito was confident that neither Minato nor Kushina would survive the night.
"I'll come for you in ten years."
After saying that, Obito vanished into Kamui Dimension.
'Seriously? You couldn't even knock on the door?!'
Left alone on the cold doorstep, Menma wanted to scream. The frigid night wind whipped against his face, but as a newborn, he had no way to move. He also has no Chakra in his body, so all he could do was open his mouth and wail as loudly as possible.
Boom!
In the distance, the huge form of the Nine-Tails erupted within Konoha, his massive tails thrashing as he began reducing the village to rubble.
Instantly, the entire village was thrown into chaos. Civilians were jolted awake from their sleep and scrambled toward emergency shelters, while Ninjas rushed to the frontlines, desperately trying to hold back the rampaging beast.
"Director, what's all that noise? Did something happen in the village?" A child's voice piped up from inside the orphanage.
Creak…
The door swung open, revealing Yakushi Nono in her black-and-white nun's uniform, accompanied by a gray-haired boy.
"Huh?!" Nono gasped when she spotted the crying infant on the doorstep. She immediately scooped him up.
"An abandoned baby?" Kabuto stepped forward, looking at the now-silent child in Nono's arms before scanning the surroundings.
Nono checked the swaddling cloth and found a crudely written note.
"Menma… Is this his name?" Nono murmured to herself.
From the direction of the Konoha Village, monstrous silhouette loomed in the darkness, the oppressive aura palpable even from afar.
Recognizing the nine thrashing tails, Nono, who had participated in many wars and gathered intelligence from other Ninja Villages as a spy, instantly guessed that the Jinchuriki had lost control.
She quickly instructed Kabuto to gather the other orphans, preparing to lead them to the nearest emergency shelter.
It was not until the next day that Nono settled the children and ventured into the village to gather supplies. She saw the severely damaged village, with the villagers mourning their lost loved ones.
After asking around, she learned the full extent of last night's tragedy: the Nine-Tails Rampage… and the deaths of the Fourth Hokage and his wife.