Chapter 37

Menma is sitting in a dark room in the corner curled up in a ball just staring at the ground. Sairana is on the bed next to him still in a coma. He sways back and forth occasionally looking at Sairana before returning to his original position.

"Pathetic" said nine tails. "For you to be in this state after a couple of days. Just pathetic." Menma stays silent. "So what you're just going to sit in this room waiting for her to wake up, hoping that she'll wake up? What if she doesn't wake up? What will you do then go sulking for the rest of your life?"

"Don't nine tails" said Menma softly. "I'm not in the mood."

"You're never in the mood. In case you forgot, I'm inside you. If you die, I die. We have that katana girl Sekkeu still out there and it's only a matter of time before she gets here." Menma stays silent. "For you to be in this sorry ass state is hard to watch." Menma squeezes his arm tighter. "Think of Naruto. What's going to happen to him if you aren't there to protect him?"

"Naruto has Sasuke and Kakashi with him. I doubt he'll get into anything too serious."

"Do you even hear yourself talking right now? You don't even sound like yourself anymore. The old you would never say something like that."

"The old me? I don't even know if that matters now. Just look at what's happened to me throughout my entire life. Every time I experience happiness, I always end up screwing up."

Nine tails sighs. "Honestly I think all your suffering is because of Naruto."

"What?"

"Nothing forget I said anything."

Back downstairs, Adonn is busy watching Jinzunochi who is still in a genjutsu. He is tied up on the couch facing the ceiling. Adonn folds his hand looking on in shame.

"I don't get it. I could have sworn that this was the work of Itachi" said Adonn to himself. "But there's not even a shred of evidence that he was even here. How could Sairana do such a thing? It's impossible." Adonn pauses. "Then again he could have infected Sairana and Jinzunochi….no if that was the case, Sairana would be in a genjutsu as well and her chakra is calm."

Adonn stands up and starts examining the Jinzunochi. He places his hand on his head closing his eyes. "Release" he says. Nothing happens. He opens his eyelid and looks at his eye. His eye appears to be dilated. "Hmm, well then, this is troubling." Suddenly he hears a knock on the door. "Must be Aylana, I guess she came back." He walks to the door and suddenly senses something. He backs away from the door as a red blade goes through the door. The sword then cuts the door open and Sekkeu walks through it.

"Hello" said Sekkeu.

"Come to free your friend I assume?" asked Adonn

"Wrong" she said. "I'm here for the black haired boy."

Adonn looks on in shock. "Menma, why are you after him?"

"We have some personal matters to attend to." A red aura starts emanating from the sword and surrounds Sekkeu.

"How?" Adonn looks on in confusion.

"Courtesy of our last battle. As well as this." Suddenly a bunch of clones appear behind Sekkeu. The clones rush Adonn who does some hands signs. "Water Style: Water Wall" a large water wall blocks him off. The real Sekkeu rushes past him towards the stairs. The water dissipates and Adonn finds himself face to face with eight clones. Each of the clones brush their swords. Two of them have fire emanating from their blades, two of them have ice, two of them have wind and two of them have lightning. Adonn takes off his visor and stares strait at them.

"Your eyes are different" said a clone. "There're yellow."

"This is my normal eye color" said Adonn. "Count yourself lucky that I can't access the nine tails chakra that often.

The real one makes her way to the room Menma's in. She slowly opens the door and walks in. Menma has his head down not even looking up.

"You come to yell at me again sensei" said Menma. "Or is it Aylana come to make fun of me."

"Neither kid" said Sekkeu. Menma raises his head to see Sekkeu just over him with her sword drawn. "We have a fight to finish."

Menma looks on in disinterest. "You're here to kill me?"

"To fight you" Another clone appears and holds a sword to Sairana's neck. Menma looks on in shock. "Refuse, and she dies."

Menma clutches his fist glaring at her. "If you hurt her—"

"Good, that's what I want to see." She grabs Menma by the collar and throws him through the window. He goes flying into the back yard of the house behind Murzo's she jumps out the window landing in front of him. "Too small" she picks up Menma carrying him to the center of the village. She comes to a large courtyard fenced off. In that courtyard was a wooden beam with bones tied to it. Sekkeu throws Menma over the fence and jumps over to the area staring at Menma and smiling. "Yes, this is perfect. The place where I started causing trouble for this town. It's fitting."

"Trouble?" said Menma as he slowly stands.

"This is where I killed the hero of this village." She points to the bones tied to the wooden beam. "That's his corpse there as a reminder of what will happened if you go against Gato. It fits being in the middle of the village where everyone can see and know. It's fitting that our last fight take place here."

Menma gets into a fighting position when he feels himself getting light-headed and starts to stagger.

"Damn, your hunger and lack of sleep puts you at a disadvantage" said nine tails.

Sekkeu aims her sword at Menma. She smiles saying, "Now let's begin!"