Chapter 53: Uchiha's Mad Laughter

While Menma's shadow clone was playing house with Naruto and Hinata, Menma's original body had already departed from Orochimaru's base. Utilizing a Flying Thunder God mark he had previously left at a certain location on the southern coast of the Land of Hot Water, he teleported directly to the country.

The location was a dock warehouse in a coastal city within the Land of Hot Water, which had been sealed off after being purchased by the Karto Group.

Menma inspected the Flying Thunder God kunai inside the warehouse's secret chamber, as well as the various security items belonging to the surrounding subordinates. Once he confirmed that nothing had been triggered, he set off along the coastline toward the ruins of Uzushio Village.

Following the coastline, he quickly located the small island that once belonged to the Land of Whirlpools.

Amidst the ruins of Uzushio Village, the faint glow of several campfires illuminated a corner of the wreckage.

When Menma, dressed in a long black robe and wearing a white three-eyed fox mask, arrived at the site, he immediately drew the attention of the pirates and rogue ninjas camping there.

"Where did this kid come from?" Several pirates were the first to approach, brandishing weapons such as machetes and spiked clubs.

The destruction of the Land of Whirlpools likely occurred during the Second Shinobi World War, around the 37th year of Konoha, meaning seventeen years had passed. Consequently, lush greenery had begun to grow here.

Under the light of the campfires, weeds grew thick among the ruins, and shrubs partially buried the outlines of the structures that had remained since the nation's fall seventeen years ago.

Presumably, after the Land of Whirlpools was destroyed, most of Uzushio Village's assets had been carved up by other nations.

Even this site would have likely been guarded by ninjas for a long time back then, digging deep into the earth to search for the secret treasures of the Uzumaki clan.

However, after seventeen years, the place had devolved into a den for pirates and rogue ninjas.

"Hey! Kid, we're talking to you!" Several pirates walked up to Menma with arrogant expressions, one of them spitting on the ground.

*Swish—*

With a whistle of wind, the pirate's head fell off like a ball.

Blood erupted from the severed neck like a fountain, staining the surrounding pirates red.

"AAAAAHHH!!!" Having never witnessed such a terrifying scene, the pirates fled in all directions, terrified and losing control of themselves.

Seeing this, the other rogue ninjas realized the newcomer meant no harm and drew their weapons.

A Shinigami, carrying a scythe over his shoulder, drifted slowly down from the darkness like a ghost.

He swung his scythe, unleashing countless wind blades that slaughtered all the pirates attempting to flee.

"Who are you!" a man who appeared to be the leader of the rogue ninjas shouted sharply.

However, his hand trembled slightly as he held his kunai, betraying the fear in his heart.

"A rogue ninja from the Hidden Mist?" Menma noticed that the forehead protectors of these individuals bore the symbol of the Hidden Mist, but with a horizontal line slashed through it.

However, these rogue ninjas possessed very little chakra; aside from the leader, who barely approached Chunin level, the others were merely Genin.

Furthermore, Menma had no interest in these people, nor did he even have the slightest interest in recruiting them.

"Kill them." A cold voice drifted from beneath the white three-eyed fox mask.

The Shinigami behind him suddenly lunged forward, swinging his scythe to harvest the lives of these rogue ninjas.

The screams lasted only a short time.

Menma walked into the stronghold of the rogue ninjas and pirates to conduct a search.

As expected, aside from a small amount of ninja tools, there was nothing but some food and money; there was not a single thing related to Uzushio Village.

"Kagura Shingan (Mind's Eye)!" Menma closed his eyes and activated his Kagura Shingan, increasing his chakra perception sensitivity to probe the entire island.

"..." Before long, Menma sensed a faint fluctuation of chakra deep within the ruins of Uzushio Village.

Even when Menma had used his Kagura Shingan to sense the island while out at sea, he hadn't detected it. It was only by increasing his perception sensitivity that he noticed the anomaly.

Following the direction sensed by his Kagura Shingan, he soon arrived at an abandoned stone chamber.

The entire chamber had partially collapsed, most of the characters on the walls had been destroyed, and many areas had even been hollowed out, as if someone had been trying to see if there was space behind the chamber.

Menma walked up to the wall of the stone chamber and looked at the ruined text.

That faint chakra was emanating from these characters.

"A sealing jutsu?" Menma paused before the stone wall, raising his hand in an attempt to decipher the text.

But as his chakra attempted to penetrate the characters, a sensation of gentleness and a sensation of repulsion hit him simultaneously.

"Countermeasures... but it's not entirely resistant..." Menma was very familiar with this sense of resistance; while he was in the "Limited Tsukuyomi World," he had always felt a vague sense of repulsion.

It wasn't until he triggered the Fourth Shinobi World War within that world and caused chaos that he was completely rejected by that world.

But these characters contained not only repulsion but also a gentle sense of acceptance.

"It seems it must be related to bloodline," Menma speculated. It likely required pure Uzumaki blood to open this sealed secret chamber.

And behind the chamber, there might be the secret treasures of the Uzumaki clan, historical records of the clan, or perhaps even the records regarding the sealing of Uchiha Hikari.

Indeed, Menma's purpose for visiting the ruins of Uzushio Village was to find the recorded location of Uchiha Hikari's seal.

Although he could have eventually found the sealing site by using his Kagura Shingan like a radar to scan the coastline of the Land of Fire bit by bit, it would have taken too much time.

"A pure-blooded Uzumaki..." Menma pondered, raising his hand to touch his hair.

It was all because Minato Namikaze's genes were too strong; even his hair color had been washed away.

Among the surviving Uzumaki in the ninja world, Uzumaki Nagato would be considered a mixed-blood, but it was impossible to look for him.

He wasn't sure if Uzumaki Hanari of the Land of Sea was mixed or pure-blood, and she was likely still a child, perhaps not even having learned chakra extraction yet.

That left only Uzumaki Karin's mother...

"I'll have to make a trip to the Hidden Grass Village." After determining his next course of action, Menma did not head directly to the Hidden Grass.

Instead, he rested at this rogue ninja camp.

In the ruins of Uzushio Village under the night sky, the campfires crackled, while the summoned beasts, Shinigami and Tennyo, kept watch nearby.

Menma reverted to his child form and sat before the campfire, taking out the glass culture bottle containing the two-tomoe Sharingan he had snatched from Orochimaru.

In the pale green liquid, the Sharingan swayed slightly with the fluid.

Menma opened the cap, reached in to grab the Sharingan, then gouged out his own right eye and replaced it with this one.

His nearly omnipotent chakra began to rapidly link with the eyeball.

Although his original body was only three years old, the eyes are the part of the human body that undergoes the least change; a three-year-old's eyeball is already 80% the size of an adult's, and the owner of this eye appeared to have been a youth.

Closing his eyes to adapt to the Sharingan, Menma began to drive Yin-release chakra to stimulate the eyeball.

After a moment, Menma lowered the fingers covering his right eye and opened them! The two tomoe slowly rotated within the blood-stained socket, finally transforming into a three-tomoe Sharingan!

"Heh heh—" Looking at the world through the Sharingan, Menma let out a soft chuckle.

"Hahahahaha!" Finally, he could not help but let out an Uchiha-like mad laugh.