As the shadow trio came into view of Menma he started shaking a little. 'The last time I've fought anyone with skill was Kimimaro... is Kimimaro dead? If he is then how long did it take him to die? Ugh, I have to focus on the problem at hand.'-Menma.

Menma looked down at his shaking hand and thought, 'Am I shaking from excitement, or is this just fear?'-Menma.

Menma got closer to them but they still didn't notice his presence. Menma froze in place and couldn't move any further. 'Well actually the last one I've fought with skill was Deidara, but that was more of an in the moment kind of thing to save Gaara. I'm actively walking towards these people, and I can't shake the feeling that I'm walking towards my own death.' Menma wiped the cold sweat off his face and bit his lip. He remained completely still for a few seconds and reopened his eyes to reveal his 6 paths sage mode.

His hands finally stopped shaking and he thought, 'Is this really how I feel around strong opponents? When I confront Odin, a literal God. Are my legs just gonna turn to jelly and collapse?' Menma clenched his fist and gritted his teeth. 'NO! This is what I trained for!' Menma smirked, 'Adonai was right when he said I'd die if I had fought them back then. But at least now I know their weaknesses. I just have to accept that, not every battle will be a guaranteed win. All I can do is have hope and confidence in my own abilities.'-Menma.

Menma put up the shadow clone hand sign. 'This was Naruto's signature jutsu. I only ever really used this when I trained.' Suddenly several clones appeared and Menma nodded at them. The clones jumped in between the buildings and disappeared out of view. I've had about 5 minutes of prep time to prepare for this, I hope that's enough.' The 3 of them finally noticed Menma and he said, "Hey."

The distraction didn't need to be complicated, in fact it was extremely simple. In the small fraction of time Menma had their complete undivided attention his attack had already commenced. 'This is a test. I need to test what weapons will work on them, it's most likely the tso weapons, but I need to be sure.'-Menma.

Out of the 3 clones only 1 of them had a sage blade and it came down on Sachi. The normal weapons used on Saburo and Sen went right through them and the clones were eliminated, but the sage blade made contact on Sachi and drew blood off of Sachi's neck. But as soon as Sachi felt the loss of blood he dove forward and kicked behind him, exterminating the clone.

Sachi glared at Menma and stated, "That was dirty."-Sachi. Menma replied with there is no dirty in a battle of survival." Sachi stood up and said, "You know what? You're right."

The confidence in Sachi's voice worried Menma and he realized Saburo and Sen weren't in front of him anymore, but before he could put up his guard he felt a searing pain in his back and he was sent flying.

Tears came out of his eyes from how painful it felt. 'Damn it! How did I not notice them disappear? Also what the hell was I hit with?'-Menma. Menma tried to stand up, but as soon as he stood up his back gave out and he collapsed again. He heard footsteps coming from behind and asked the owner of them, "What did you do just now?"

Sen responded, we aren't average ninjas, we cut you in a specific place in your spinal cord to make you collapse using these blades that scrape away anything they touch." Saburo hit Sen over the head and asked, "Why would you tell him that?!" Sen defended himself by saying, "Well for someone that wears the cloak of the sage of 6 paths he doesn't seem that strong."

Menma's eyes widened slightly and he slapped his head in realization. His Angel's Blessing kicked in and healed his back wounds. The trio looked at Menma as he slowly stood up. 'That's right, I have the same power as the sage of the 6 paths. I can use yin yang release, I've mainly been using it for fun stuff like food, but I've never really applied it to battle. I planned on using it on the way here, but I forgot about it in the heat of battle.'

Menma stared at the 3 of them and they stared back in silence. Menma flashed them a smile, but before they could react in any way Menma started running away. They were caught off guard by the action at first but they quickly started chasing after him.

Menma ran around a couple streets. First block 2009 and the corner of block 2008, he ran this path 3 times and eventually ended up running into a store and hiding in a corner. While he was in the corner he grabbed something off the shelves and stashed it away. The shadow brothers ran into the store after him and searched for him. Menma looked for a light switch and eventually found one. He turned on the lights and they all spotted him. Menma charged towards them mixing the normal sharingan with sage mode. They just stood there.

Menma prepared a fist and threw it at Sachi. They weren't expecting the attack to land. And once his hand passed through him he would be impaled on all sides, killing him instantly. As Menma's fist was inches from Sachi's face he thought, 'I don't want them to notice anything, so as soon as I'm within a 10th of an inch in distance I'll transform the tso bracelet into brass knuckles.'

Menma's objective was successful and his fist smashed into Sachi's face and he was sent flying through a window. 'ALRIGHT! Hopefully I can kill him right away!' Menma dashed past the other 2 brothers before they could react and he jumped out of the window. Menma turned his brass knuckles into a sage blade and he was getting ready to impale Sachi, but before he could Sachi faded away into the shadow Menma cast on him.

Menma stopped mid stab, but he didn't have any time to be surprised. 'Stupid! I got too excited and forgot about their shadow ability.' Menma noticed a knife he was heading right towards that was poking out of his shadow on the ground. Menma grabbed the sides of the blade and used it as a pivot to roll out of the way.

Menma jumped back inside the store and noticed the other 2 brothers were still inside. Saburo looked at Sen and told him, "Go check on Sachi." Sen nodded and disappeared. Menma started fighting Saburo. While they were fighting Saburo thought, 'How is he able to touch us? Is it a sharingan ability? No that wouldn't make sense. He must be hiding something in his sleeves.'

As they continued to fight Saburo pulled out his sword in the middle of a punch and started slashing that. In a panic Menma made a tso wall and backed up. Saburo decided to test out the wall and put a hand against it. He noticed that the part of his chakra cloak on his hand disappeared and he quickly withdrew it. Saburo stared at his hand as the cloak recovered it and he said, "I understand now, so you can produce some kind of chakra leeching object that negates our shadow cloak."

Menma frowned slightly and responded, "I would have preferred to keep that a secret a bit longer, but yes." 30 clones showed up and attacked Saburo from behind while they were talking, but Saburo expected this and started fighting all of them. Each time he knocked out one of the clones he used a different move that impressed Menma. 'He doesn't waste a single movement, every single attack is aimed to kill in 1 hit. He's better than me at Taijutsu, I couldn't handle 2, let alone 3 of them attacking me at the same time. It's a blessing Sen went to check on Sachi.'

The remaining 8 clones brought out sage blades and started to pressure him. Saburo started backing into a wall and before he could suffer any damage he closed the door on himself and disappeared.

He reappeared 2 meters away and quickly eliminated the rest of the clones. Menma grunted and thought, 'With any other opponent you can usually corner them and that will give you a better chance of winning, but he gains an advantage by being cornered since he can just disappear into a shadow, I'll have to go with my backup plan.

Saburo started walking towards Menma and Menma asked him, "Why do you 3 side with Orochimaru? Your chakra tells me you don't hold much malice towards me unlike some of the others I've come across." Saburo stopped walking and stared at him. "You don't know Orochimaru like we do, he isn't as bad as you think he is. But he's different now... he's changed ever since that Od"- Menma scoffed and shouted, "Different than I think he is?!? Do you have any idea what that monster did to me?!? He's the reason why I'm like this now!!"

Saburo remained silent for a moment. He clenched his fist and responded, "I know what he did. And me and both of my brothers know exactly why it happened. That's why we swore we would take down the man who corrupted our father."

Menma's only response was a slightly disgusted face after he spouted the word father. Saburo noticed this and sighed and stated, "It looks like you're too far gone to have your mind changed about him. So I'll have to stop you."

Both of them got into a battle ready position. Menma surrounded his hands with tso's and charged at Saburo. As they started going at it Menma had a reluctant look on his face. 'This is going to be a really disgusting way to use yin yang release. I just gotta remember not to swallow.' Menma thought as he started replacing his saliva with oil. 'I need to make this look convincing so he doesn't notice.

Menma made 20 more clones and they all started assaulting him. Everytime they managed to make him fall or it seemed like they were about to get a hit he would disappear into a shadow that a shelf made. Eventually Menma got tired of this and used Kamui on everything inside the store.

Saburo looked around and stated, "All you did was make it so your defeat will arrive sooner." Menma started warming himself up and got into an unorthodox stance and tried to blitz him right away. It failed but now that he was close enough he wanted to test out if a genjutsu would work. He activated his EMS and tried to activate Tsukiyomi. But Saburo wasn't making eye contact. In fact, it looked like his eyes weren't even there.

Menma backed up slightly freaked out and Saburo chuckled a bit. "Surprised?" Menma replied, "Where are you eyes?" Saburo put a hand over his eyes and when he put his hand back down his eyes reappeared. "You did you really think I can only go into the shadows with my entire body? I can send individual parts of my body into them if I need to. Just now I sent my eyes into the shadows and I was granted a cinematic view. Also, look at your right side."

Menma did what he said and looked at his right side. After looking at it, his eyes widened and he noticed blood was pouring out of his side. He also noticed the bloody blade on Saburo's foot. He collapsed onto the ground and Saburo stood over him. "Give up, I just stabbed your liver and you might bleed out. I don't want to have to kill you."

Menma laughed a little and responded with, "Oh, you don't have to worry about me bleeding out, Minako made sure of that." Saburo's brows furrowed and he asked, "Who's Minako?" Menma started standing up and replied, "Do you remember a red haired woman you kidnapped and gave to a royal family?" Saburo asked, "What about her?"

"She died because of you. But before she died, she gave me this." Saburo showed signs of slight surprise and asked, "She was killed? I didn't"- Saburo was cut off by a burst of light that surrounded Menma's waist. Saburo had to run to the other side of the store.

Menma noticed part of Saburo's cloak came off and took note of it. 'Alright now I just need to'- Menma's thoughts were cut off in return when he something right behind him.

Without thinking he instinctively activated Kamui as a blade went right through his head. Sachi followed right after the blade and stood next to Saburo. Sen followed right after him and Menma was once again confronted by all 3 of them.

Menma grunted and thought, 'I guess I was a bit naive to think everything would go exactly as planned. They showed up a bit earlier than I thought they would, but this can work in my favor.'

Without any words being said Menma took the initiative and started attacking by himself with tso gloves on his hand. As Menma expected he wasn't doing too well. The closest he came to hitting them was just grazing them, and even then they probably let him come that close just so they could counter it.

If there was a tally board of hits landed it would be Menma-0 and Shadowtrio-60. Everytime Menma got hit some blood and saliva would come flying out of his mouth.

Eventually Menma backed off and thought, 'The fact that they're so much better than me at fighting is extremely irritating. With some people like Sasori I was able to just overwhelm them, but even if I was stronger than these guys that kind of tactic wouldn't work. But at least I don't have to do this anymore, all of my prerequisites are in place, I can start now.'

Menma turns his fingers into a flint and steel. "Menma, this is your last chance, I've been trying to avoid killing you. But if I have to I will," Saburo stated. Menma activated Kamui and looked at both Sachi and Sen transporting them away.

Menmna snapped his fingers and all of the oil that covered the room set aflame in an instant. Saburo instantly fell to the ground and started screaming in agony as his cloak was getting burned off by the flames.

Eventually none of his cloak remained and Menma got a good look at his face. He had emerald eyes and black hair and his facial expression resembled frustration and sorrow. "Why did you send away my 2 brothers?" Saburo asked.

Menma responded, "You 3 have more cooperation than my shadow clones ever could. Your coordination is so on point that sometimes I think that the 3 of you share the same mind. I'm sure that if I used this on all 3 of you, you would have found out a way to escape."

Saburo looked down and stated, "We underestimated you. I don't hate you, but you'll end up regretting not seeing our side of things." Menma turned away and started walking away, but before he left he took Saburo's soul. 'I don't want to give Odin anymore souls, I'm gonna start holding on to them.

Menma walked outside and took a deep breath and said, "Now I'm just gonna recover a bit and then"- Menma was cut off by the sound of footsteps approaching to his right. He jerked his head in the direction of the steps and saw 2 familiar shadowy figures. 'Huh? What? How is this possible? I sent them to the Kamui dimension... how did they come back?'

'Rerumu Kara Rerumu. He thinks that the ability is as simple as just shadows, but it's much more than that... wait, where is Saburo?' Sachi thought. Sen also noticed their brothers absence and narrowed his eyes. "Where is Saburo?" Sachi asked.

Menma got over his initial shock and answered, "He's in a place I'm gonna send you to soon." Both of their eyes widened and Sachi started seething. "YOU BASTARD! I knew we shouldn't have gone easy on you!" Sachi shouted as he started charging towards Menma with Sen flowing behind with an equally determined face.

Menma braced himself and thought, 'Seriously? They were going easy on me earlier?!?' Menma activated Kamui and Sachi flew right through him.

Menma started running away and ran through block 2009 and the corner of block 2008 a couple times before running into the forest. He eventually arrived at a deep river and stopped right in front of it.

Sachi came from behind and tried to slice him but Kamui was still active. Sachi started a constant assault on him which didn't give Menma a single chance to drop Kamui. 'Ok, I need to find some kind of pattern in his moves if I'm gonna get a chance to grab him. Then I can'- Menma's thoughts were cut off he suddenly felt a gut wrenching pain in his stomach.

Sachi noticed his sudden pause and sliced for his neck, but Menma still had Kamui active so it passed right through. But Menma still felt pain in his neck and he started choking on blood. Menma used Amaterasu to force Sachi to back off and he activated Angelic Blessing to heal himself.

'What the hell are these people?!? First they escape the dimension and then they find their way back?! It's gonna be really hard if I can't use that anymore, but I can't risk getting stabbed,' Menma thought.

Sachi read Menma's facial expression and concluded that he already found out what they did and he wouldn't use that again. Sachi started an endless assault on him. He would jump from shadow then slash at him then dive into another shadow before appearing out of another shadow.

Each time he did this Menma would just barely avoid a lethal hit but he would still get scraped by the blade which left lots of gashes on his arms and legs.

"Why did you kill Saburo?! He could have killed you a long time ago but he didn't!" Sachi asked. Menma replied, "His kindness was his downfall. My mission is something that goes much deeper than what you know. Let's say I did surrender, what would happen then? Would you tell me not to come back again, or would you take me as a prisoner?"

Sachi didn't reply out loud, he simply thought, 'If you surrendered we would have convinced why you don't have to kill Orochimaru, but you're too far gone now.'

Menma had thought that Sachi would have at least slowed down by now, but he showed no signs of stopping and Menma's wounds only grew. 'This is getting exhausting, I feel like I might collapse any minute now.'

Menma tried to use Amaterasu so he could get breathing room. His eye started bleeding and Sachi backed off, but the black flames never came. Menma's eyes widened and he looked down at his hands. "So you finally noticed." Sachi stated.

Menma blurted out, "My chakra! How did I lose so much?!?" Sachi held up his blade and announced, "Since you already figured it out I'll just say it. My sword doesn't just scrape away things, it also leeches off chakra."

Menma acknowledged Sachi's words and smiled in his head as his heart rate accelerated, 'I'm glad I had a plan B for that. But I'm not sure if I'll be able to use it."

Sachi started his assault again and as he kept going Menma started to concentrate and take advantage of his 6 paths sage mode. 'I need to sense deeper.' Menma started to concentrate harder than he did when he was learning sage mode and he started to sense more than just the chakra in the area. He started sending the slight vibrations in the ground caused by footsteps, and the movement of air molecules caused by a solid person passing by, along with the wavelengths that were all around him. He eyes were closed but he still saw a bright light in front of him. He felt the urge to grab it and he reached his hand out and grasped the light.

He opened his eyes and saw that he grabbed Sachi's arm. Menma didn't waste any time and before putting any thought into it he activated his God Seal and sent all of his nature chakra into Sachi.

Sachi backed up and felt a bizarre feeling. He noticed he started bloating and shouted, "What the hell did you just do!?!" Menma responded, "I gave you nature energy, anyone that hasn't trained with it will turn into stone if it enters their body."

Menma expected despair when Sachi learned this news, but all he saw was pure determination in Sachi's face as he started bloating. Sachi darted at Menma and raised his sword while shouting, "I won't let you hurt Sen!" Menma was caught off guard by his sudden assault and put up an arm to protect himself.

His arm was cut off and Menma screamed in pain. Sachi tried to follow up but Menma kicked him away into the river. Sachi tried to swim up but most of his body was already stone and he didn't have the strength to swim up. He desperately tried to swim up anyway as he started drowning, but it was futile. He eventually accepted his fate and his last dying thought was, 'This reminds me of when Orochimaru taught us to swim... I did all I could, so don't lose, Sen.'

Menma used Angelic blessing after absorbing a clone that was gathering sage energy. Menma looked down at his arm that was cut off and thought, "I may have the 1st Hokage's cells, but I won't regenerate this until morning. I'm glad he didn't cut off my arm with the God seal.' Menma tried to walk away and started thinking, "Having only one arm is depressing."

Even though Menma used Angelic Blessing his body was still aching. Menma's attention was averted from his missing arm when he heard a mournful scream come from further into the forest. Menma started running upstream and thought, 'This is happening earlier than I'd like, but I'm gonna have to go through with this plan now. Saburo was definitely the smartest, that's why he required such a discreet plan. And Sachi must have been the fastest. But I don't know what Sen is capable of. So if this plan doesn't work I have nothing left that I can do.'

Menma arrived at the waterfall he was looking for and gulped. 'I'm pretty sure this can kill me, but I'll end up dying anyway if I don't go through with this. Menma pulled out the bubble bath bottle he pulled off the shelf earlier and he brought it to his lips. He instinctively recoiled.

Menma looked at the bottle for what felt like an hour. He eventually heard footsteps approaching and without hesitation he gulped down the whole bottle. He covered his mouth to stop himself from vomiting. 'Ok, now I need to mix this the right way with yin yang release,' Menma thought.

Sen came into view and his eyes reflected hate. 'The bubble bath bottle was only a 3rd of the plan. I have to thank Nero later for teaching me a little bit about those seals and conditions for conditions. Honestly in literally any other situation than this, this technique would be useless and detrimental, but it's perfect for this. We started a little past midnight and it should be about 6:15 now.' Menma calculated.

Menma finished his thoughts and looked back at Sen. Menma felt slight surprise looking into his eyes. He didn't purely reflect hate, he showed despair more than anything else. From the redness of his eyes Menma thought he must have been crying.

"What the hell is wrong with you? We offered you surrender and you killed us in response?! Screw trying to convince you!! You killed both of my brothers, I'll kill for this YOU BASTARD!!!" Sen screamed aloud.

As Sen started charging at Menma his thoughts were, 'He's... he's just a child. He must be younger than me. All of them are skilled enough to kill someone with 1 attack, but I'm questioning myself whether or not they've truly killed anyone before.'

Sen distance from Menma was now only 5 meters and before he could come any closer he sunk into his own shadow. Menma braced himself for an attack from any direction, but it never came. Before Menma could do anything he suddenly felt like he was sinking.

Menma looked down and saw Sen pulling him down into the ground from within his shadow. Menma quickly started flying up but before he got his foot completely out of the shadow Sen cut a small piece of his foot off.

Menma looked down at Sen from above. But before he could formulate any plans Sen reached his hand into a shadow. 'Saburo had a trick where he sends only parts of his body into the shadows, I should be able to do the same thing. I put my trust in your technique brother.'

Menma suddenly felt a horrible pain in his shoulder and slowly glanced at it. He noticed that an arm was coming out from under his collar and stabbing into his shoulder.

Menma started panicking and his thoughts were frantic, 'What the hell?! How is this possible!?! He shouldn't be able to reach up here!?! How is he doing this?!' All of Menma's thoughts caused him to lose focus and his 6 paths sage mode deactivated. He started free falling and he fell straight into the river as his blood started pouring out of his body.

Menma looked up at the sky as his body started feeling numb. He started seeing bizzare images flashing before his eyes. Some were from before he became friends with Kurama. Some were from when he escaped Orochimaru's hideout a couple years ago. And some were from only a few hours ago.

Menma started standing up and a faint grin fashioned his lips. He thought, 'Ah, now I see, he figured out he can send parts of his body into the shadows by themselves and bring them back out of the shadows created from wrinkles and flappy parts of people's clothes. How terrifying. But I'm not gonna die just yet. I still have some chakra, and the end goal of my plan is right within my grasp.'

He glanced at a bubble right in front of him and he looked at Sen. "Hey Sen, do you know what time of day it is?" Menma asked in a knowing tone.

Sen was slightly confused by the question, but his eyes widened as he looked up at the sky and noticed the sun was out. Menma took advantage of that moment of surprise and activated the tso walls surrounding the bottom of the waterfall.

Sen felt extremely confused and he asked, "How is it morning?! We only started to fight 30 minutes ago around midnight."

Menma couldn't hold back a smile and he thought, 'There's nothing more satisfying than a plan that works out. Menma stated, "That is the power of Uzumaki seals. Condition and condition. My first condition was that when my targets make eye contact with a certain object they are unconsciously put under a genjutsu that makes it so everytime they see it they go sleep for 1 hour. And because my targets are bonded to it, it will activate if even 1 of you see it. Now my other condition a.k.a. rules were that I would also be put under the genjutsu, the targets must make eye contact with the object while also being within 5 meters of it, it drains my chakra every minute, and I'll never be able to use this ability again after the day is over. The object In question was a light pole on the corner of Block 2008. I wasn't simply just running around. And all of it finally worked out."

In the time Menma described all of that Sen's shadowy cloak burned off. He looked around for an escape opportunity, but he noticed that within the tso walls there were no shadows, not even below his feet. There were only bubbles. "I thought I would die, but I managed to clear my system of all of that bubble bath stuff after getting stabbed. After getting all of that stuff out of my system these nature energy enhanced bubbles were formed, they reflect light significantly more than they would normally do. There's no way to escape now."

Sen gritted his teeth and charged at Menma. "I'm still far superior than you at Taijutsu!" Sen shouted. Menma closed his eyes and replied with, "That may be true, but..." Menma let himself get stabbed but redirected it to a non lethal spot next to his heart and activated Angelic Blessing and stopped his bleeding before it got bad.

Sen tried to back off but Menma grabbed his arm and a tear of blood came from Menma's eye before he reopened them and Black flames enveloped Sens's body. Menma let go of Sen and Sen tried to dive into the river to stop the flames but they never stopped. "Angelic Blessing, this is an ability given to me by a kind woman you sent to death. Now I'm returning the favor." Menma stated.

Eventually Sen stopped moving and his body settled as the flames consumed him underwater.

Menma's eyes returned to their normal blue and he didn't have enough chakra to maintain his water walking. He swam to shore and stood up. "Well I should get back home before Nozomi wakes up, I don't want to worry h"- Menma stopped talking when he lost the strength to speak and his body collapsed. It was like his body realized it's mission was completed and his body gave out.

Menma didn't have the strength to do anything, he couldn't even move his lips to call for help. He tried to mold some chakra so he could make a tso fly him home, but he didn't have enough chakra.

He laid there broken with a missing arm and a mangled foot along with many other scars littering his body.

Eventually Menma also lost his will power too and he felt himself slipping into unconsciousness. 'I'm so tired, I think I'm gonna sleep now... yeah, that sounds good."