On the bright deck, while the ship was being carried to its destination by sea's hand, sailors stood and stared at the table placed
"I... I don't know who my father was... She, my mom, never told me about him... All I know about him from her word was that he had a strong body, easily lifting heavy stones that no one else could..."
Menma started slowly, choosing an easy topic to buy himself time to shape the rest of his story.
"My mom... she was like me. We had the same hair color, same face, same smile, same likes and dislikes, same habits, even the same mannerisms..."
But as he spoke, the image of Kushina's smile, the one he had taken from the cemetery and lost while fighting for his life in Konoha, surfaced in his mind, along with what Kurama had once told him about her.
"She had the brightest smile in the world, you know? No matter how harsh life or the people around her were, she never broke down... She always looked toward a bright future. One she never had... and never would..."
Minato and Kurama both felt the shift in Menma's tone, and it pained Minato deeply to realize that these weren't just words, they were reflections of how his son truly felt.
"We lived in a remote village, just a few people. She was bullied there constantly, always pointed at and ridiculed. But she never complained. She just... protected me while I grew up. But things changed last spring."
Here, Menma began crafting an original tale, one woven with truths and lies, pain and performance. Slowly, he raised his tear-streaked face and looked Murakami in the eyes, as if staring into his soul.
"I remember... it was a normal spring day. Birds flying overhead, butterflies and bees buzzing over the flower garden me and my mom had made, piece by piece."
He took a breath, then dropped his gaze to the sea stretching out beyond the ship, a bitter smile curving on his lips like a wound.
"Two ninjas came. Wearing strange forehead protectors. I didn't know them, so I stepped forward politely and asked who they were looking for. But those bastards..."
His eyes flared with rage, his body shook. The anger was real, raw, sharp, and terrifying.
"They grabbed me! Just snatched me up like an animal! Then shouted at house, calling my mom to come out. After she did so, seeing me being held like that, she almost passed out. But they dragged us toward the jungle on the edge of the village. The villagers, people we had lived with for years, just watched. Some even said we deserved it."
Menma's body relaxed slightly, but the faint, mocking smirk forming on his lips spoke volumes.
"A mother and son, treated like filth. Why? Heh. I'll never know. One of those ninjas turned around once we were far enough, and burned the whole village to ashes. I heard their screams, begging to be spared... but no one was. There was only fire. And death..."
By now, every person on deck was silently ensnared. Unbeknownst to Menma, his chakra had begun to pulse, gently at first, then steadily, radiating invisible threads of emotion and memory.
The subtle genjutsu that formed didn't twist sight or sound, it pulled on hearts. No one could look away.
Inside the seal, Kurama smirked, then nudged a wisp of chakra into Minato who had already fallen.
Minato jolted awake, his mind briefly clouded by emotions that weren't his own. His eyes widened.
"What... was that?!"
Kurama grunted.
"It's one of the brat's hidden talents. Something only I and now, you know."
Minato stared at him.
"But what exactly happened? He, no, he can't even control his chakra! How is it even possible? What kind of jutsu is it?"
"It's not a jutsu." Kurama stretched lazily.
"It's his chakra. It's massive, and he can share it with others without meaning to. And for example, That cat! She mutated from it. And when Menma gets emotional, his chakra pulses, subtle waves that sync with nearby people. They don't notice it, but their own chakra starts matching his frequency. That pulls them into his emotional state, a natural genjutsu made of empathy. Even I had to study him for a while to understand it."
Minato was left speechless.
Kurama gave a toothy smirk.
"Your son is a one-man army. A storyteller who weaves truth into illusion, and illusion into shared reality. And not a single person on this ship even knows they're already inside his world woven with lies and plays..."
----
Back to Menma, he had now captured the full attention of every sailor and man who had heard his words. Even some crew members had walked out of their cabins just to listen to his storytelling.
Menma took a deep breath and continued.
"While that guy was burning the village, my mother used a moment of distraction to beat the ninja holding me hostage and rescued me. Then, hugging me, she ran as hard as she could."
He paused for a moment, letting the weight of that memory settle in the silence.
"We ran for a long time, until we reached a wide river. My mother wanted to circle around it, but those guys... they had already caught up with us."
"Facing them, my mother pulled me behind her and backed away into the river. She stood her ground while three more ninjas appeared, surrounding us with only the river behind."
At this point, Menma's voice grew deeper, pain clinging to every word like a shadow.
"One of them stepped forward and said they wanted to take us to some village to seal a beast... something like 'baiju' or 'beju'; I don't really remember it."
Murakami's shoulders stiffened. He trembled. That name, he understood the dark reality it hinted at. The boy's presence on his ship was not a small coincidence... it was fate.
"My mother tried to get me out of it. She argued. Pleaded. But they didn't care. In the end, she pulled a knife from her robes and then... she stabbed herself!"
Menma's voice cracked, and tears welled up in his eyes, spilling down and falling onto the deck.
"Her... sob... her action was so sudden that no one reacted. She didn't stop. She pulled the blade out.... and stabbed herself again! When the ninjas jumped to stop her, she..."
"...she pushed me hard toward the center of the river."
He took a ragged breath, choking down the pain burning his throat.
"And... and... the next second, a loud explosion shook the water. When I swam to the surface to see what happened, all I saw was thick, black smoke... and red water flowing downstream..."
Tears streamed down Menma's cheeks, falling one after another.
Minato, witnessing it all from within the seal, found himself genuinely doubting whether this was a fabrication or the truth. What he saw in Menma's heart felt real. Too real...
"Explosion tags, huh..." Murakami murmured to himself, now fully drawn into the boy's tale.
"A mother's final act... a bloody sacrifice to save her son..."
Menma stayed quiet for a while, regaining control over his broken breathing. Then he gave himself to the emotion again and continued.
"After that, I was swept away by the river for hours, maybe days. Eventually, I was pulled out by a passing doctor..."
"It took me a long time to recover. And when I finally opened my eyes, I realized... I had no one left. Nowhere to go. No one to trust."
Menma began to tremble again, this time with controlled rage and resentment, giving his performance even more color.
"That man... he saw my pain. My loneliness. And he used it. He asked me to follow him, until I found myself a home. Said he'd give me a new life."
"He took me on foot through dozens of towns, crossing countries. We traveled for five months straight, from a place to another."
His voice dripped with betrayal, and everyone listening was pulled deeper into the pain, rage, and helplessness of a child abandoned by the world.
"I started to trust him. I saw him as the father I never had. He became the only roof above my head, the only shadow shielding me from rain..."
Menma's body shook violently now, eyes bloodshot, rage boiling at the surface.
"But he... he sold me."
"He drugged me; took me to a hidden dock and sold me to an organ dealer!"
The entire deck seemed to freeze.
"But he made a mistake." Menma's voice dropped, now cruel and sharp.
"He miscalculated the dosage."
Now calm, but with a bone-chilling smile on his lips, Menma's entire aura changed, no longer a victim, but a beast who had tasted blood.
"I woke up while they were still bargaining over my corpse."
"I quietly took the knife I'd hidden on my body... moved in the shadows, slow and silent."
"Then....stab! I rammed it into the dealer's heart and split it in two."
"The bastard in body of a human tried to run... but I wouldn't let him."
"I pushed the bloody knife into his chest. Missed his heart, of course. That was fine. I didn't want him to die quickly. So I sat on top of him... and slowly stabbed the other lung."
"I watched him drown in his own blood and snot... I enjoyed the view."
Menma fell quiet, eyes dark and unwavering. The silence that followed was chilling.
Then, in a lower tone, he completed the story; how he escaped the camp, hid in a barrel, and floated aimlessly until fate tossed him aboard this ship.
The deck was dead silent. Even Murakami, hungry for wealth and always ready with a scheme, was quiet, stunned by the sheer savagery and sorrow etched in this boy's life.
He had expected lies, but what he got was a boy who had already lived more blood than most men see in a lifetime.
After finishing the story, no one on deck had recovered.
Every single person stood silently, drowning in the raw emotions and brutal turns of the tale they'd just heard. They were so immersed that for a moment, they had forgotten about the protagonist.
Menma, gripping the arms of his chair, slowly stood up, his body poisoned and weak, trembling from the strain. Pure willpower and his absurd recovery abilities were all that kept him upright.
Reaching to his side, he grabbed the saber from its sheath, on the belt of the sailors holding Sarah down on the chair. Then, with his free hand, he slammed and pushed the side of the table, sending it sliding toward the side.
Crack! Smash! Bang! Splash!
The table flipped violently, dishes flying. Food splattered across the deck. The wooden slab skidded across the planks and smashed against the railing, finally falling into the sea.
The crew jolted awake from their trance like someone shaken from a vivid dream.
And that moment, that beat of confusion, was exactly what Menma had been waiting for.
He yanked the blade free and staggered forward, pressing it against Murakami's neck.
"Now listen closely... I, who have lost everything, don't care what kind of life anyone on this ship faces. If you dare to push me, hunt me or feel greed toward me... there will only be one end!"
His voice cut through the stunned silence.
With deliberate slowness, he raised the blade, readying a beheading swing.
But Murakami just sat there. Staring.
He was supposed to flinch, kick, counter or something!
What was this?
Wasn't this his part of the play?
"Oi! Don't you rehearse before coming on stage?! Come on!" Menma screamed in his mind.
Murakami still didn't react.
So Menma no longer cared. He truly held the saber up, and aimed to behead him.
"AHHHHH!"
With a powerful shout, he swung the blade, slow but strong enough to cut, dramatic and final.
Murakami snapped out of his daze. Seeing the blade mid-swing, sheer panic kicked in.
He didn't hesitate, he kicked Menma hard in the chest!
The boy flew backward, crashing onto the deck. The captain, tangled with his chair, hit the ground hard too, rolling and scuffing his clean white clothes. His image of arrogance and pride, shattered by an eight-year-old child.
Anger was erupting from with in.
But before he could shout in anger
THUD!
A blade embedded itself into the deck, right next to his head.
He turned to see the saber shaking back and forth after landing beside him, just inches from his neck.
Menma, kicked back, had deliberately let the saber fly as part of his dramatic fall. He himself had hit the ground with grace, an act worthy of a stage award.
Kurama, unlike the stunned Minato, watched with absolute glee.
"This kid... I really like this kid."
He chuckled.
"Which other Hokage-level monster do you know who pretends to be a helpless child just to pull off an Oscar-winning scene? He is way more funny than the first hokage when he was with his wife."